Three Holes
by VilyaSage
Summary: For Aki's fic contest! It's twilight. Tomorrow they go to Kraden's house for another 'boring' lecture. But tonight, two best friends are busy being just ordinary kids--a chance they won't get again for some time.


Three Holes

A/N: For Akiko's contest! This is all in fifteen minutes, I swear!! This takes place the day before the game itself begins (between 'three years later' and Jenna walking to Isaac's house).

Disclaimer: The scene is mine, the people are not. There you go.

It is night.

Well, alright, twilight. The sunset was one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of sunsets. In the three years since Dad...died...I've made a point of watching both sunrise and sunset every day that I can. Tonight, Garet watched it with me. Jenna was here for a while, but she likes to go to bed early.

"Isaac," Garet asks, looking at the emerging stars, "if you could have any one thing in the world, anything it's possible to actually _have_...what would it be?"

I know I'm staring, but I can't help it. This is a very un-Garet-like question. But ever since the storm, he's grown quieter, and more thoughtful, too. I find myself wishing, sometimes, for the easier friendship that we had as children.

"I would want a roof that it was impossible to put holes in," I decide, and Garet makes a face. I spent yesterday morning fixing two large holes that big oaf—and I mean that only in jest—put in my bedroom ceiling. "Made out of something durable, you know. Like mythril or something. Were you asking because you want to tell me what _you_ want?"

Garet glares at me, then runs a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. In all the time I've known him, that hair has been untamable. And fiery red, like the power he draws his Psynergy from. Not that my hair's any tidier. It just won't all go in one direction!

"I would want Adepts who could use all four elements."

"What? I thought you said 'actually.'"

"I did. I think it's possible. I've actually been listening to Kraden recently and..." Garet loses himself in his thoughts, and I sigh, half in relief and half just because it feels like a sigh belongs there. "If I couldn't have that, I'd want to go on a journey to save the world!"

"Does the world need to be saved?" I ask. Garet shakes his head. "Well good. As long as it's still in once piece we have nothing to worry about."

"But man...to be a hero! Someone everyone remembers as long as they live and forever afterward!" Before I can stop him, Garet jumps to his feet and is posing as he believes a hero should look. The effect is somewhat ruined when the lower half of his body disappears into what is probably the left side of my bedroom.

"I just fixed that same hole!" I cry, but I pull him out anyway. It takes some effort, and as I tug again he suddenly flies free, crashing into where one slope of the roof meets a higher one and creating yet another hole.

This time it's his feet and head sticking out. I wish there were a way to preserve this moment and show Jenna and Kay later—we could make great jokes out of this. "I'm not pulling you out again," I tell him, "two holes are more than enough." He works his way out himself, and sits back down again—carefully, this time—and looks up at the sky.

"I can't believe I have to fix more holes," I complain. "I guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow afternoon."

"Me too," Garet says. "We're all going to Kraden's, remember? To learn about, what, Mount Aleph I think."

Inwardly, I groan. Though my voice sounds like a groan too. "Oh, great. That means I have to get up early and do this first!"

"I'll come over and help ya, buddy," Garet offers. I hold my hands up in horror.

"No! No, that's alright, I can do it just fine. I'll use Psynergy, it'll go faster. I hope it's not too boring with Kraden tomorrow," I add, recalling previous such days. "Sometimes I could just fall asleep where I stand."

"No kidding." The sun has set now, and the sky is black-blue with a sprinkling of tiny stars. Garet stands, carefully, and heads for the ladder to the ground. "Guess I should be going. Mom'll hang me in the well if I'm late again."

"You're seventeen, Garet. Just after sunset is a bit early, don't you think?"

"You try living with my mother and sister," he retorts, and then he waves and descends the ladder, bound for home. I stand to climb down myself, but I'm spared the extra few steps by a sudden shifting in the roof below me. I drop vertically into my bedroom.

"Like I said. A roof you can't put holes in."


End file.
